New Worlds Five at Glorietta Activity Center

Here are some pictures I took from the NWA 5 convention at Glorietta, just a week after the G2 explosion/bombing. I was expecting a few people in the mall, but I was glad that there were a lot of visitors wandering around the activity center.

Here are some of the pics taken from my Nokia phone.

Philippines e-Learning Society

My officemates and I attended the 6th National e-Learning Conference last October 25 and 26 at UST's St. Martin Auditorium. It was a nice experience mingling with educators from the private and public sectors.

We managed to tackle issues like copyright laws, e-learning for the academe and BPO industry, learning management systems, cyber crimes, and other learning theories applied through e-learning.

Overall, the Pels seminar was informative. But most of the materials covered were suited for the academe. As an employee of a BPO company, we can only apply some of the topics into our work. What is interesting (for me at least) is how the conference showcase the different LMS available and used by the nation's academe.

Here are some pictures of the event:

Nano's Soft Monster Doll Series

I'm promoting the works of my friend, Nano Ching. He's a mumbushu scholar who has done several exhibits already. I've been bugging him to post pictures of his art works online and he finally set up a flickr account! You can take a look at his artworks at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bananamoat/

Aside from paintings, Nano is also a skilled silk screen painter, and maker of dolls.... here are some pictures of his "Soft Monster Doll" series.

[Book Review] The Golden Compass (4 out of 5 stars)

It took me some time to finish Philip Pullman’s the Golden Compass. This is the first book in Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy. I was introduced to the book ten years ago, when the book was first published. But I wasn’t really impressed with overall concept of the story – the idea of a young girl traveling the world with her pet deamon/familiar and a talking polar bear.

I had the opportunity to read the book in the past, but I was never motivated to do it. There were several reasons why I never got pass the book’s cover.

First, the trilogy is marketed as children’s fiction. True, the main protagonist is a young girl and the story revolves around her adventures. But the ideas and theories behind the story are complicated. The novel deal with theories of other worlds, religion, metaphysics, the Church, and original sin. So I wasn’t really sure if I’d enjoy reading a children’s novel that attempts to tackle adult themes, as well as philosophical and scientific ideas. I don’t even know if Pullman is good enough a writer to pull this off.

Second, the story deals with religion and faith. I had the initial impression that Philip Pullman was attempting to write another C.S. Lewis “Narnia” type of story. Eventually I learned that Pullman was doing a total opposite of what C.S. Lewis did. Rather than present the story as a parable or fable, Pullman used elements of steampunk and some philosophical theories to express his religious ideas. Some Christian groups claim that Pullman’s story is anti-Christian, because of the way he portrays the Church as a powerful organization of oppressive inquisitors.

Third, the novel was originally titled “The Northern Lights”, but was changed to “The Golden Compass”. I thought the book had been banned or gotten a lot of negative feedbacks that it had to change the title. Apparently the main character’s alethiometer, which was shown on the book's cover, resembles a large compass. This caused the North American publishers to rename the book as “The Golden Compass”.

Despite all these controversies and changes, I found a copy of the book and started reading it. Once I finished the first hundred pages, I began to enjoy the story (the first few chapters were a bit boring for me). The novel’s main protagonist is a twelve year old girl named Lyra, who is on a quest to look for her missing friend. Armed with her trusty alethiometer, Lyra is thrown into a world filled with political intrigue, evil experiments, and a very corrupt church. In the course of the story, we learn that Lyra’s world is just one of many worlds, and Lyra’s parents are also on a quest to discover how to travel to these other worlds.

Pullman succeeded in creating an interesting world that is filled with witches, talking polar bears, and people with daemons. Lyra’s world resembles a Victorian age England, with steam-punk technology. But what captivated me to the world was Pullman’s idea of deamons. In this world, the souls of people are tangible and manifest as an animal that always stays near its human counterpart. During childhood, a person’s deamon can change its shape, but upon reaching adolescence the deamon settles into one form. This final form reveals the person's true nature and personality.

I also loved the characterization of Lyra and her parents. Lyra’s innocence and strength of will enables her to overcome the challenges and conflicts thrown at her. Despite her victories, Lyra also has her share of mistakes. She gets duped by her parents, and her trusting nature gets her into a lot of trouble.

While the story revolves around Lyra’s adventures, we also get to see the political scheming of her parents. While Lyra is naïve and trusting, both her parents are deceitful and manipulative. Both have their own motives and they are driven by their own beliefs and ideologies. Through them we see Pullman’s ideas on religion, philosophy and science.

Despite my initial reluctance, I enjoyed the book. It was an exciting and interesting reading experience. Pullman manages to incorporate all the philosophical and scientific theories into an exciting novel. But let me warn you, the book ends rather abruptly and it leaves you wanting to read the next novel.